apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

356 EPISTLES OF S. IGNATIUS.
like Ignatius, were very commonly sent to Rome, and that the spectacles
in the metropolis were held paramount in importance, so that the wishes
of the provincials were sacrificed to them; (2)
That it was not unusual
to transfer such persons from one province to another where a victim
was wanted for
provincial games, and that even this latter practice was
only limited by a rescript of the joint emperors Severus and Caracalla,
which required the permission of the emperor in such cases'.
So far therefore as regards the mere fact of the transportation to
Rome, we find nothing in this instance which must not have occurred
in thousands of cases besides. But difficulties have been found likewise
in the circumstances attending this
transportation. Do these
difficulties rest on any substantial basis
Criticism inevitably goes astray unless it is
guided and tempered by
a historic imagination, which can throw itself into the probabilities of
the case. In this instance it has been altogether at fault. Ignatius has
been regarded as accompanied by ten soldiers, who had nothing else to
do but to watch him, to whom collectively he was chained day and
night without a moment's intermission, who controlled his
every movement,
who had directions to suppress every interchange of companionship
and every expression of sympathy, and who performed to the
letter the charge thus laid upon them.
The picture is absurd. Soldiers were not so numerous even in the
Roman empire, that ten men could be spared to guard a single provincial
convict of comparatively low rank, a convict moreover from
whom the State had nothing to fear. Plainly the guardianship of
Ignatius was not their absorbing care. It was sufficient if one, or at
most two, were chained to him at any given time. They had manifold
other duties besides. Probably, as I have already indicated, they had
in their custody other prisoners, whom they gathered up on their route.
1
Renan i^Les Avangilcs p. 487, note i)
writes, ' Si ejus roboris vel aitificii sint
ut digne populo Romano exhiberi possint,
1. c. Digeste Cette coutume ne commen9a
d'etre abolie que par Antonin '.
Here is a double mistake ;
(i) The practice
which was abolished or rather restricted
by the rescript in question, was the practice
of sending these human victims into
another province to meet their death,
and had nothing to do with sending them
to Rome. (2) The Antoninus meant is
not Antoninus Pius or M. Aurelius, as
Renan evidently supposes, but Antoninus
Caracalla, the son and colleague of Severus,
and therefore the rescript dates between
A.D. 198
— A.D. 211, during which
period they were joint emperors. Zahn
(/. V. A. p. 65)
is correct on the first
point, but he explains the emperors as
Antoninus (Pius) and (Septimius or Alexander)
Severus.
Hilgenfeld falls into the
first error [Apost. Viih'r p. 216) and into
the second [Zeitschr.f.
p. 99).
Wiss. Theol. xvil.